The present invention relates to user interactive computer supported display technology and particularly to such user interactive systems and methods which are user friendly and provide interactive users with a window interface environment which is easy to use and readily adaptable to systems requiring data security.
The 1990""s decade has been marked by a technological revolution driven by the convergence of the data processing industry with consumer electronics industries. This advance has been even further accelerated by the extensive consumer and business involvement in the Internet over the past few years. As a result of these changes, it seems as if virtually all aspects of human endeavor in the industrialized world requires human-computer interfaces. There is a need to make computer directed activities accessible to many people who were until recently computer indifferent. In order for the vast computer supported market places to continue and be commercially productive, it will be necessary for a large segment of computer indifferent people to become involved with computer interfaces.
One continuous impediment toward making user interactive computer display interfaces friendlier and more accessible to users is data security. With the accelerated use of the Internet for business functions, including electronic commerce, the possibility for data loss and theft has also greatly increased. The user involved with secured systems may be burdened with dozens of access passwords and different access protocols to various databases. To make security matters even more cumbersome and complex, even when the user provides the protocols and passwords to access secure data, he does not get access for an indefinite time period. Usually access time periods are limited to hours. The user is required to renew his access before the expiration of the time period. In most security access protocols, renewal before expiration is not as cumbersome as an original secure system access. If the time period is allowed to run out, then the user must startup his access from the beginning or, worse yet, he could lose track of his data completely.
In a great many business and technical operations, it is not unusual for the interactive user to be dealing with several secure data sessions in several windows at the same time on his display. Since such sessions likely have commenced at different times and deal with data bases permitting access for differing time periods, it may readily be seen that keeping track of the expiration of time periods for access for the various windows can be quite stressful and frustrating to the interactive user.
The present invention simplifies the tracking of access time periods to secured data in a computer controlled user interactive display system with means for storing a plurality of displayed windows comprising secured data. Means are provided for tracking for each of said plurality of windows a variable parameter relative to the window, in combination with means for displaying along at least a portion of the borders of each of the windows a color varying with said variable parameter being tracked for said window. In secured access systems, the parameter being tracked is the period of access time.
The advantages of having the window borders change color as an indication of progress toward the expiration of the access time period for each window are clear over other possibilities. If a sound indicator were used, with multiple windows, it would be difficult to determine to which window the sound applied. Similarly, any kind of visual indicator within the window would be subject to the probability of being covered over by another window in any desktop window environment where windows are continually being brought up and moved around. In the case of the present invention, even when the window is overlapped by another window, it is likely that some portion of its border would still be visible to inform the user of the timeout based upon the color change in the border.
In accordance with a variation of the invention in the case where the portion of the window border displaying a color varying with said time period in an overlapped window is completely overlapped, there may be provided means responsive to the near expiration of said time period for raising the overlapped window above its overlapping windows so that the border will be visible.